Chakir Pasha’s mission had been to travel all through Kurdistan for the last two years, and the following interesting statements were made sporadically in the further course of my conversations with his suite:
“One of the most remarkable features of this Armenian rebellion was the marvellous rapidity with which news spread among Mussulmans and Armenians alike. Thus, hardly had Sir Philip Currie in the autumn of 1895 telegraphed to Erzeroum to the locum tenens of the British Consul that the Sultan had accepted the proposals of the Powers than the gentleman in charge asked for the telegram and interpreted it as portending Armenian autonomy. A newspaper correspondent telegraphed from London to Givon Schismanian, the Archbishop of Erzeroum, ‘Victoire complète’ (Armenian: ‘Mouzaferiat berke mal’), and the news spread to the farthest limits of Kurdistan. In some places the Kurds decided to make a clean sweep of the Armenians. Chakir Pasha started immediately for Khinis, on the road between Erzeroum and Bitlis, and persuaded the Kurdish beys to remain quiet. Twenty-four hours later it might have been too late.” In fact, according to statements of Chakir Pasha’s suite, both here and elsewhere he saved many hundred lives by his prompt measures.
The Armenians on their side, so I was assured, fêted the correspondent who had championed their cause in a London newspaper as a national hero, “Le Sauveur de l’Arménie.” The Armenians of Erzeroum presented him with a pen set in brilliants; the Armenians of Tiflis gave him whole cases full of presentation plate. The following was subsequently told me by one of Chakir Pasha’s staff:
“We were staying at the government house in Van with Chakir Pasha at the end of September ’96, when we were unexpectedly informed that the hiding-place of the Armenian insurgents had been discovered. They had entrenched themselves in the gardens of the Armenian quarter of the town, and it would have been extremely difficult to get at them without artillery. Chakir, fearing that the Mussulman population might get beyond control if fighting was at once commenced, told off a large body of troops to cut off the Armenian quarter from the other part of the town. After this was done the Armenian revolutionists were driven out of the town, losing a number of killed and wounded. In the meantime the representative of the Armenian Bishop of Van called upon Chakir Pasha and showed him a telegram which he proposed to send at once to Monsignor Khrimyan, the Armenian Catholikos of Etchmiadzin (in Russia), in which he said that, while the Armenians had for six hundred years been contented under the dominion of the Turks, people from abroad were now coming to trouble their tranquillity, and he begged Monsignor Khrimyan to use his influence to prevent such people from coming into the country, as they could only do the Armenians harm. To this Chakir Pasha replied that the telegram in itself was excellent, but it ought to have been sent long ago, and not at the very moment when the insurgents had been discovered by the authorities; that it was a matter of public notoriety that these people had been in Van for two months past, and that the Armenian community had been well aware of the fact, and ought to have apprised the authorities, so that they might distinguish between their friends and their enemies.”
Of the members of the suite of Chakir Pasha with whom I had opportunities of talking the most interesting was Mavrocordato Effendi, an Orthodox Catholic, and related to the Greek princely family of the same name. He had previously been Turkish Consul-General at Liverpool and at Barcelona, Secretary of the Turkish Embassy at Paris, etc., and was a cultured European. He spoke English almost like an Englishman. Community of meals for several days following in stormy, depressing weather brought about mutual confidence and expansion of ideas.
Mavrocordato had not been able to see his young wife and child for fifteen months, as he had accompanied Chakir Pasha in his mission right through Anatolia, or Kurdistan—a country many Europeans will persist in calling “Armenia.” He was a hard-working and zealous Turkish official, with the breadth of view of a cultured man of the world.
“Yes,” he said in conversation, “the reforms desired by the Powers are now introduced throughout Asiatic Turkey and in full working order. But I do not think much of their practical value. Their spirit is already contained in Turkish law, which is excellently adapted to the needs of this part of the world. Of course we have had abuses: what country, particularly what Eastern country, has not? But we are on the road to improvement. The principal thing we want is a body of honest and capable administrators and minor functionaries, and on your journey through the country you will be able to convince yourself that among Turkish officials in Anatolia the majority, especially among the new appointments, are good men—a great improvement on the old order of things.”
“But how about the rumours I hear of appointments depending on the bribery of officials at the Palace in Constantinople?” I asked.
“Do I look like a man who has bribed his way through Palace officials?” he replied. “There may be instances of bribery and peculation, but hardly in connexion with these matters. What Asiatic Turkey is most pressingly in need of are good roads and railways. At the present moment the Mussulman population, which is far worse off than the Christian, is very poor; and the richer the harvest, the poorer they are. For where there is plenty prices decline, as there are no adequate means of transport and no markets. But another difficulty which the Government has to contend with in all its attempts at reform is the conservatism which seems ingrained in everything and everybody Asiatic. It is this that the diplomatists of Europe lose sight of when they, Penelope-like, elaborate one plan of reform after another for the Turkish Empire over a green baize table in some kiosk on the Bosphorus. A little incident will illustrate this. The Sultan sends a capable official to some distant province as kaimakan, or prefect. He has been educated at Constantinople, at the École Civile. He is scrupulously honest, in touch with modern ideas, enthusiastically devoted to his work, and anxious to benefit the people under his care. He endeavours to introduce reforms, beginning with the improvement of the roads of the town where he officially resides. He calls upon the inhabitants to contribute towards this good work. Result: the Mohammedans and the Armenian population join hands and petition the Government to have the kaimakan removed. He is a modern man: they prefer the old-fashioned do-nothing type of official.”
Such was the information my companion and I gathered on the eve of our plunge into the Asiatic domains of the Sultan from some of the men who had been responsible there for the maintenance of order. The time had come for departure. We had spent several days at Trebizond inspecting the bazaar and making some purchases of stores, Dr. Hepworth and myself ordering each a warm sheepskin fur—such as are worn by the peasants and camel-drivers—and after having engaged some tumble-down vehicles and horses, we started on the long journey through the interior of the country to Erzeroum—a matter of eight to ten days’ travelling. We took leave of every comfort associated with civilization, such as beds, washing-basins, even tables and chairs, which we only came upon again at the end of our journey at Alexandretta.